Our Father

In Luke's Gospel, the Our Father, like so much else in Jesus' teaching, is occasioned by a request from His disciples: "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples" (Lk 11:1). This should get our attention, because it is typical of Jesus' method of revelation that, instead of going around announcing, "Hey! I'm the Messiah!" He appears to leave so much of revealing Himself to the initiative of others. Half of His sayings are replies and rejoinders to things somebody else said or asked. Even the great and shocking revelation of His identity as the Christ, the son of the living God, is made not by Him directly, but through the apostle Peter. The disciple makes the great confession; Jesus then confirms it by telling Peter that flesh and blood has not revealed it to him, but "my heavenly Father" (Mt 16:17). -Read More